Sometimes the best laid plans of rovers go astray. After wrapping up at the Rock Hall drill site yesterday, the plan was for Curiosity to start driving towards the clay-bearing unit (our first drive in about a month), starting with a series of small bumps so that MAHLI could take images of the full outer circumference of the wheels (as described in the blog for Sols 2293-2294). However, an arm fault prevented yesterday's drive from executing, and today Curiosity remains parked in front of Rock Hall.

The good news is that we get one more day to explore this spot. Before we reattempt the MAHLI wheel imaging and the drive, Curiosity will use the DRT to brush dust off of the target Bothwell, image it with MAHLI, and collect chemical data overnight with APXS. ChemCam will explore a few more targets here as well, including LIBS observations of the bedrock targets "St Ninians Tombolo," "Stac Pollaidh" and "St Cyrus 3," and a long-distance RMI mosaic of a butte of layered sulfate-bearing rocks towards Mount Sharp. After this bonus science, Curiosity will make the first of several eastward drives to exit the Vera Rubin Ridge and enter the clay-bearing unit. When we return from the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday next week, hopefully we'll be greeted with images of a brand-new workspace to explore!

About this Blog

These blog updates are provided by self-selected Mars Science Laboratory mission team members who love to share what Curiosity is doing with the public.

Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

Contributors

Sterling Algermissen

Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA

Ryan Anderson

Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ

Mariah Baker

Planetary Geologist; Johns Hopkins University; Baltimore, MD

Michael Battalio

Atmospheric Scientist; Texas A&M University; College Station, TX

Kristen Bennett

Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ

Fred Calef

Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA

Brittney Cooper

Atmospheric Scientist; York University; Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sean Czarnecki

Planetary Geologist; Arizona State University; Tempe, AZ

Lauren Edgar

Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ

Christopher Edwards

Planetary Geologist; Northern Arizona University; Flagstaff, AZ

Abigail Fraeman

Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA

Scott Guzewich

Atmospheric Scientist; NASA/GSFC; Greenbelt, MD

Samantha Gwizd

Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN

Ken Herkenhoff

Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ

Rachel Kronyak

Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN

Sarah Lamm

Planetary Geologist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM

Michelle Minitti

Planetary Geologist; Framework; Silver Spring, MD

Claire Newman

Atmospheric Scientist, Aeolis Research; Pasadena, CA

Catherine O’Connell

Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Melissa Rice

Planetary Geologist; Western Washington University; Bellingham, WA

Mark Salvatore

Planetary Geologist; University of Michigan; Dearborn, MI

Susanne Schwenzer

Planetary Geologist; The Open University; Milton Keynes, U.K.

Ashley Stroupe

Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA

Dawn Sumner

Planetary Geologist; University of California Davis; Davis, CA

Vivian Sun

Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA

Lucy Thompson

Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Ashwin Vasavada

MSL Project Scientist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA

Roger Wiens

Geochemist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM

Tools on the Curiosity Rover

The Curiosity rover has tools to study clues about past and present environmental conditions on Mars, including whether conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life. The rover carries:

MRO is back--we received over 400 Mbits of data through the orbiter yesterday! The amount of data relayed through MRO will decrease once the orbiter's instruments are operating again (they were turned on this morning), but in the meantime we're enj

After much analysis and discussion, the MSL project decided that the bright object on the ground is benign and that we can therefore proceed with the long-anticipated first sample manipulation activities .

The first wheel scuff went well , so we planned APXS (elemental chemistry) and MAHLI (close-up imaging) of the floor and sidewall of the scuff, as well as an undisturbed area just to the right of the scuff.

With the successful execution of the last of the MSL arm checkout activities , the characterization phase is complete! Many first-time activities still lie ahead (like drilling, scooping, and delivering samples to themineralogy and orga

The best news today was that analysis of more detailed ChemCam engineering data showed that the problems noted a few sols ago were very minor and now completely understood, so the instrument can now be used again! While we suspected that the proble

The rover drivers are ready to test more advanced driving techniques andsoftware, but we stayed put today to finish the last of the Mastcamcharacterization activities (the second half of the long-baseline stereoexperiment).

We've started getting Mastcam characterization data on the ground, and the key focus test data have allowed us to modify the command sequences sent to acquire more characterization data with the focus quality needed to make use of them.